Lake Monster
There is a man-made monster
in the man-made lake. The surface
is too shiny for comfort, it looks like
it is sleeping like a perfect infant
in its coffin. Water is supposed to be
blue like cauliflower and wholesome
like fields of wild grain blowing in
the salad days of the American memory.
Not black like the oil of the American
dream machine. The automatic thrashers
and mechanical meat separators. I’m
developing swimmer’s ear just listening
to the lake not lapping on the concrete
shores. I’m developing body hair and
opinions on women in the adolescence
of my American summer camp. Opinions
on women and opinions on older boys.
On justice and punishment. And horseplay
makes the monster move beneath the water.
And the older boys are like sharks in their
smoothness, their body hair appearing
out of place and brushing your leg
like the weeds beneath the surface that
grace your toes and make you set records
for speed back to the dock. The monster
is smooth too like a sharkskin and the boys
are sea mammals hunting in packs by
the man-made filtration fountain where
campers are forbidden to climb but
boys will be wolves will be sharks
with octopus puckers and squid beaks
and tendrils that whip out from under
black water and wrap around your ankle
and pull you under where you can’t see
or breathe but wait but wait but wait.
| Joshua Schneider |
|
levelheaded: Lake Monster
Based on the first 11 lines of Joshua Schneider’s “Lake Monster,” the poem’s speaker has a negative view of “man-made” things. There is something discomforting about a built, oil black lake. Whatever dwells within it does so unnaturally, like “a perfect infant / in its coffin.”
The lake water “not lapping on the concrete / shores” is a striking image that further illustrates the artificiality of the setting. But more, it suggests stagnation, perhaps representative of the speaker’s unbreakable bond to memories from adolescence, almost certainly representative of the inability to reclaim one’s childhood as an adult.
Inhabiting these “man-made” waters, the speaker develops body hair, opinions on women and older boys, opinions on justice and punishment. This lake is where the speaker grows up. The process is marked by play, eroticism, violence, and fear:
(. . .) And horseplay
makes the monster move beneath the water.
And the older boys are like sharks in their
smoothness, their body hair appearing
out of place and brushing your leg
like the weeds beneath the surface that
grace your toes and make you set records
for speed back to the dock.
The first two lines above lead us to wonder what exactly “the monster” that’s moving beneath the water is. It’s tough to overlook the possibility that, in this context, the monster could be one-eyed. Junior high humor aside, the man-made monster in the man-made lake is likely a representation of an adult in an adult-run world. The older, pubescent boys’ leg hair is “out of place.” For a child, brushing against that adult world spurs fear.
Given the view of man-made things put forth early in the poem, it makes sense that the speaker, that “you” the reader, would be reluctant to enter these dark, predator-filled waters. As former children who have been pulled into adulthood, we empathize with this voice uttering a final, helpless plea to “wait but wait but wait.”
– The Editors
